Agatha Cristie: Third Girl 4-2

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What had happened was not her father's fault. She will not believe it!

"Oh yes, that often happens, I assure you. I know something of the psychology. So when she learns that you are coming home, that you and she will be reunited, many memories that she has pushed aside and not thought of for years return. Her father is coming back! He and she will be happy together! She hardly realises the stepmother, perhaps, until she sees her. And then she is violently jealous. It is most natural, I assure you. She is violently jealous partly because your wife is a good-looking woman, sophisticated, and well poised, which is a thing girls often resent because they frequently lack confidence in themselves. She herself is possibly gauche with perhaps an inferiority complex. So when she sees her competent and good-looking stepmother, quite possibly she hates her; but hates her as an adolescent girl who is still half a child might do."

"Well -" Restarick hesitated. "That is more or less what the doctor said when we consulted him - I mean -"

"Aha," said Poirot, "so you consulted a doctor? You must have had some reason, is it not so, for calling in a doctor?"

"Nothing really."

"Ah no, you cannot say that to Hercule Poirot. It is not nothing. It was something serious and you had better tell me, because if I know just what has been in this girl's mind, I shall make more progress. Things will go quicker."

Restarick was silent for several moments, then he made up his mind.

"This is in absolute confidence, M. Poirot? I can rely on you - I have your assurance as to that?"

"By all means. What was the trouble?"

"I cannot be - be sure."

"Your daughter entered into some action against your wife? Something more than being merely childishly rude or saying unpleasant things. It was something worse than that - something more serious. Did she perhaps attack her physically?"

"No, it was not an attack - not a physical attack but - nothing was proved."

"No, no. We will admit that."

"My wife became far from well -" He hesitated.

"Ah," said Poirot. "Yes, I see... And what was the nature of her illness? Digestive, possibly? A form of enteritis?"

"You're quick, M. Poirot. You're very quick. Yes, it was digestive. This complaint of my wife's was puzzling, because she had always had excellent health. Finally they sent her to hospital for 'observation', as they call it. A check up."

"And the result?"

"I don't think they were completely satisfied... She appeared to regain her health completely and was sent home in due course. But the trouble recurred. We went carefully over the meals she had, the cooking. She seemed to be suffering from a form of intestinal poisoning for which there appeared to be no cause. A further step was taken, tests were made of the dishes she ate. By taking samples of everything, it was definitely proved that a certain substance had been administered in various dishes. In each case it was a dish of which only my wife had partaken."

"In plain language somebody was giving her arsenic. Is that right?"

"Quite right. In small doses which would in the end have a cumulative effect."

"You suspected your daughter?"

"No."

"I think you did. Who else could have done it? You suspected your daughter."